from the as-he-should dept

As the Bradley Manning trial officially kicks off today, it's interesting to see famed Constitutional scholar and Harvard professor Laurence Tribe speak out against the case. As The Guardian notes, Tribe taught Constitutional Law to President Obama when he was in law school.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be the foremost liberal authority on constitutional law in the US and who taught the subject to President Barack Obama, told the Guardian that the charge could set a worrying precedent. He said: "Charging any individual with the extremely grave offense of 'aiding the enemy' on the basis of nothing beyond the fact that the individual posted leaked information on the web and thereby 'knowingly gave intelligence information' to whoever could gain access to it there, does indeed seem to break dangerous new ground."

Tribe, who advised the department of justice in Obama's first term, added that the trial could have "far-reaching consequences for chilling freedom of speech and rendering the internet a hazardous environment, well beyond any demonstrable national security interest."

I know that some people have pre-convicted Manning, but the charges here are simply crazy. He's already pled guilty to certain charges, but this trial focuses on whether or not he was "aiding the enemy," which would require to show that he did this knowing that it would help Al-Qaida and [classified enemy]. The supposed "proof" of this is going to be the fact that Osama bin Laden apparently had Wikileaks documents in his compound in Pakistan. But that's ridiculous. Under that theory, anyone reporting information that terrorists found useful would be guilty of violating the Espionage Act and could face the death penalty. As others in the article note, this would create a tremendous chill on investigative reporting.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Do we as IT PPL still believe he had thumb drives and Wikileaks papers strewn about his place? Really? Are we to believe the 911 mastermind, and leader of the mighty alCIAda is that technologically clueless? Bin Laden didn't have whole disk encryption?
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The desired outcome IS to create a tremendous chill on investigative reporting, and says loud and clear to any normal citizen, dont F with big brother or you'll get your ass kicked.
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Barry knows exactly what he is doing.

So posting information (that should not have been classified in the first place) to the internet gets you an "aiding the enemy" charge but giving $$$ and weapons directly to terrorists in Syria is just fine?

Some heads need to roll...

I wonder when people will stop believeing the lies they are told every day by these supposed "leaders."

We need to find a way to awaken the proles and end this facist tyranny that is wrapped in a sugar coated porn mag.

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You know the nice thing is (as i greatly dislike labels for this stuff, but not a liberal) this gives a common point for all sides to find some place to agree.

Just a different view point, but on the same grounds, and if different view points can find a middle ground there is some hope left to pull the power from those that are only using it to prop themselves up.

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I remember when Pirate Mike attacked Prof. Tribe because he thought SOPA/PROTECT IP didn't violate the First Amendment. What happened to all those personal attacks, Mikey? I thought this guy was an idiot since he couldn't match up to your super-awesome understanding of the First Amendment. LOL! ROFLMAO! Classic. Mikey thought he understood the doctrine better than Prof. Tribe. That was awesome!

Manning is going to be convicted, not on evidence and not because he did anything like listed in the charges posted against him but because there are those that want him convicted. the hope, in my opinion, is to try to scare the living shit of everyone! no one is then supposed to tell the world about all the atrocities the USA always get accused of and often get found out as having done, usually to innocent civilians during what are supposedly times of war! the majority of the charges and evidence is as trumped up as the charges and evidence used by the entertainment industries in file sharing cases. the difference here being that this poor fucker will go to prison for life and get both rogered and beaten on an almost daily basis! i hope whoever it is that's responsible for the appalling way he has/is being treated is pleased with him/herself and sleeps soundly. whether it is the President or one of his so-called trusted supporters in charge of whichever security organisation behind it all, if/when the truth comes out, i hope they can still be held accountable! how can anyone condone this treatment of someone for making the world aware of the truth? had it been an incident that happened in somewhere like Iran or N.Korea, the papers would be full of condemnation! what a double standard world we live in. what a double standard set of values we live by. both good and bad at the same time, as long as we can use them in the way we want, when we want!

I also heard they found a Google Map printout which showed where in New York the Twin Towers where.... Which begs the obvious question where does the line of something that Bin Laden reads while sitting on the toilet end and actually aiding him/terrorists begin???

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I remember when Pirate Mike attacked Prof. Tribe because he thought SOPA/PROTECT IP didn't violate the First Amendment. What happened to all those personal attacks, Mikey? I thought this guy was an idiot since he couldn't match up to your super-awesome understanding of the First Amendment. LOL! ROFLMAO! Classic. Mikey thought he understood the doctrine better than Prof. Tribe. That was awesome!

As the only person on the courts martial is the judge which had to be at the request of Manning. I believe what comes out of the proceedings will if he is found guilty require remediation by the Supreme Court.

As the only person on the courts martial is the judge which had to be at the request of Manning. I believe what comes out of the proceedings will if he is found guilty require remediation by the Supreme Court.

Strike That No Supreme Court Review, the only thing that can save him is a pardon from a president.

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Tribe is one of the foremost authorities on Constitutional law, period. Forget his politics or anything like that: the man is a walking, talking encyclopedia AND he understands it at a level that eludes even most of his peers.

Think of him as the equivalent of Michael Jordan in his prime: yeah, others can play the game, but NOBODY can play it like this guy.

Re: ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Are we to believe the 911 mastermind, and leader of the mighty alCIAda is that technologically clueless? Bin Laden didn't have whole disk encryption?

Why are you sure he had whole disk encryption? Obviously he was very careful, but perhaps he figured if he was found he didn't really care what happened to his information since he would be a dead man anyway.

Re: Damning with faint praise

The guy who taught Obama the constitution is your appeal to authority? Isn't that like talking your way out of a DUI by quoting the idiot at the DMV who approved Lindsay Lohan for a license?

The guy is widely considered one of, if not the, best constitutional scholars around. You don't have to agree with everything he said, but just because he has a poor student, doesn't mean he's off-base.

But that's ridiculous. Under that theory, anyone reporting information that terrorists found useful would be guilty of violating the Espionage Act and could face the death penalty. As others in the article note, this would create a tremendous chill on investigative reporting.

No. The person initially publicizing it on the internet for everyone to see and redistribute is guilty of violating the Espionage Act. The act of reporting on or reprinting what has already been globally distributed is a different matter entirely.

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Actually it was renown First Amendment scholar (and former Solicitor General) Floyd Abrams who Mike maintained "didn't know what he was talking about". Which, given Abrams celebrated career of First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court; is even more laughable than denigrating Tribe.

the MPAA is a client of Abrams, as are various other Hollywood trade groups. He didn't write the letter on his own behalf, but was paid by these groups to write the letter. As such, he's speaking as a paid advocate for them, not as an objective independent observer.

After that, Mike went into a great amount of detail, showing the lack of merits of Abrams' position. No part of the article involved personal attacks, or the implication that Abrams "didn't know what he was talking about."

If anyone was saying that Abrams "didn't know what he was talking about," it was Lawrence Tribe, Constitutional scholar, in the article that Mike linked to.

So, the original A.C. (who is obviously Average Joe) not only got the whole thing completely wrong - but he accused Mike of doing precisely the thing that he, himself, did. After all, he is the one who called any First Amendment concerns about SOPA "FUD," and who actually implied that Tribe was shilling for Google.

So, let's make his comment accurate:

I remember when Average Joe attacked Prof. Tribe because he [Tribe] thought SOPA/PROTECT IP violated the First Amendment. What happened to all those personal attacks, Joey? I thought this guy was an idiot since he couldn't match up to your super-awesome understanding of the First Amendment. LOL! ROFLMAO! Classic. Joey thought he understood the doctrine better than Prof. Tribe. That was awesome!

Re: Re: Damning with faint praise

Having a poor student is one thing... PASSING said student anyway with a grade high enough for him to be taken seriously as a teacher, is another matter entirely. I don't have to agree nor disagree with ANYthing as that would be entirely beside the point of my above simple musing. I, for one, have never been much impressed with either of them, but I'm glad to see we've progressed from argumentum ad verecundium to ad populum. What's next on the list of fallacies?

the files were already leaked before Manning

With over 200.000 soldiers having access to these files, every intelligence service round the world and their governments had already bought a copy. Its the fact that the Public got to see them that is the problem.

Re: the files were already leaked before Manning

Naturally, because they don't want their actions being exposed to the American public, hence why they need to create a chilling effect by making an example out of Manning. All this is going to do is ensure that whistleblowers act anonymously, that's all.

Re: In related news

When did Manning become an investigative reporter?

While I don't particularly like the way Bradley Manning has been treated, I think that there's a basis for the charges against him. Whether what he did constitutes "aiding the enemy" is the question that is before the judge. I don't know the charges for which he has already plead guilty, so perhaps the rest of my thoughts on this are moot (at least in terms of his particular situation).

First, his role as an active duty member of the military, did not somehow qualify him as an investigative reporter. Rather, while in that role, he was expected to follow certain protocols regarding the dissemination of information. And while WikiLeaks may be considered a form of journalism, there is no basis, that I am aware of, for treating Bradley Manning as a reporter for that organization.

Second, there are mechanisms within the military and the government for exposing the bad things that are done. They don't always work the way we would like, but they are there as a means to at least make the attempt. Maybe Bradley Manning tried going down those paths first, although I don't recall seeing any indication that he did so. Instead, it seems that the approach he took in "whistleblowing" was to decide on his own what documents should be handed over to an outside organization. In that, he became judge, jury and executor of the entire affair.

To put it in a different perspective...
Let's say that some person, in your inner circle, with whom you've entrusted a secret about yourself. Maybe the secret isn't something that will absolutely cause you to be jailed, but it will probably keep you from getting any job that you want to have. Would it be right for that person to decide that your secret should be exposed to the world? Should that person be held responsible for telling your secret to the world? Or should they be held up as an example of good investigative reporting?

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Don't let this dip shit get to you, Mike. He is like the only asshole in the comedy club that heckles the comedians because he thinks he is more funny than they are. We all know he is a tool and he looks more dumb when you don't respond to his stupidity.

Re: When did Manning become an investigative reporter?

While there seems to be a lot of rhetoric supporting Manning, yours is the first comment addressing some of the downsides of what Manning did, and I believe you are on point with your comments.

Some things Manning did trouble me significantly. I have read that Manning released something on the order of 700,000 classified documents to Wikileaks, and supposedly those documents could not cause harm to the U.S. So, Private Manning reviewed all 700,000 documents and decided all on his own that none of these documents would compromise any field operations or put any soldiers at risk? Private Manning reviewed those documents in view of all other intelligence and considered whether any of these documents could be combined with other intelligence to put soldiers into harm's way? If Manning took these actions, I am impressed and in awe. Clearly Private Manning is a genius and an intelligence expert ready to be inducted into the highest tiers of an intelligence organization, if he could keep his mouth shut.

Manning also claimed that his purpose was to spark a debate about how Iraqi citizens were being treated. I wonder that 700,000 documents cover poor and possibly illegal treatment of Iraqi people. I guess someone in the government has way too much time on their hands if they can document treatment of Iraqi citizens in 700,000 documents. Of course, if many of the documents, perhaps the vast majority, do not cover treatment of Iraqi citizens, then maybe Manning was just ignoring the oath he took to safeguard classified data for his own purposes.

Documents are generally classifed because they include operational information, which puts people into danger and if provided to an enemy are direct aid to an enemy, because they include information that can provide a link to an information source, which is direct aid to an enemy, or because they include capabilities, such as number of men, when and where they are going, etc., which would also be direct aid to an enemy. I struggle to believe that Private Manning was so skillful that he was able to leak only those documents that did not fall into those categories.

Private Manning's heart may have been in the right place, but he went about it in the wrong way. Releasing 700,000 classified documents seems to me much like shooting a mouse with a machine gun. I have to wonder why anyone would do anything so ridiculous, unless they were fundamentally irresponsible or just did not know what they were doing. It seems to me that Manning could have released specific documents documenting the abuses of Iraqi citizens. Even more effective would have been documents documenting the abuse that appear to have been classified ONLY because of the documented abuse.

I was in the military some time ago. I took my oath to safeguard classified documents and equipment seriously. I recognized that leaks of certain information could, and did, lead to intelligence sources being discovered and murdered. I did sometimes wonder why certain documents were classified, and probably many documents were classified needlessly, but without perfect knowledge, and I certainly did not have perfect knowledge, I was not in a position to challenge the classifying authority. I do not believe Private Manning was in such a position either.

Re: Re: Re: When did Manning become an investigative reporter?

I have seen hundreds of classified documents, all of which were classified either because of the nature of the classified material, or the source of the classified material. Out of all of those documents, I have yet to see even one where the classification was made to avoid embarrassment. However, once you provide an example, I will be convinced.

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Actually, depending on the circumstances, it is more like telling a gang that one of its members is a police informant, and they murder the person. He does deserve life imprisonment if any of the 700k documents he released have endangered people.

"However, other governments' reactions were considerably milder concerning the possible impacts of the leaks. According to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates the leaks were embarrassing but he estimated that they would only have "modest" consequences for US foreign policy"

'As for the diplomatic cables, Manning said that the more he read them, the more he came to the conclusion that the cables should be made public. He said he didn’t believe that it would damage the United States, but that it might be embarrassing, “since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations.”'

I'm not going to try to go through the hundreds of thousands of documents to pick one out, but it certainly seems at a bare minimum fishy to me, and at worst completely corrupt. Also, given the millions and millions of classified documents that exist, your viewing of a non-random selection of a few hundred of them is not statistically meaningful. There could easily be huge numbers of inappropriately classified documents without you having seen any of them.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When did Manning become an investigative reporter?

nasch:

So, you have proven beyond question that Manning's supposed motivation, the release of documents regarding the treatment of Iraqi citizens, was clearly a blatant lie. I appreciate you clearing that up.

Behind the scenes analysis of individuals is nearly always classified. Admittedly, the reason for the classification is that it is a summary of informed opinions of other leaders, and perhaps even domestic leaders, but everyone does exactly the same thing. What people would rather not do is have that summary out there for a multitude of reasons. I doubt there was all that much embarrassment over the analysis of the the various foreign leaders (more stuff that Manning revealed that directly related to the harsh treatment of Iraqi citizens), because all governments and many corporations do the same thing. All those documents are classified because while such analyses exist, it is considered gauche to reveal them.

As for my viewing of "non-random" classified documents, I was once tasked to perform an analysis, and as part of that task I perused hundreds of document randomly (pre-computer days) to determine the scope of knowledge available. Of course, my analysis was technical rather than diplomatic, so none of the stuff you linked to would have been available to me.

Thus far, I have seen nothing that I would describe as corrupt, except Manning's actions in violating a contract and an oath. I guess Manning does not hold his word in very high esteem.

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...except Manning's actions in violating a contract and an oath.

Isn't the foremost part of the military oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same"?

I would argue that section takes precedence over the rest of the oath due to it's placement. Therefore, if the action was founded in preserving the rights protected by the Constitution, even violating the UCMJ wouldn't break that oath.

Yes, IF Manning could prove that his actions were taken to "support and defend the Constitution," then he may have an argument that his actions were justified. However, in order for that to be the case, Manning would have to prove that all 700,000 documents supported that position. Conversely, if even one document compromised fellow soldiers or did not support that position, then the argument fails.

My guess: Manning was not selective in what he released, and while some of the documents might support that position, many will not.

We also need to remember that he has already pled guilty to charges that could land him in prison 20 years or more, so that part is a done deal. Among the charges to which he pled guilty are those which would have bolstered his argument that he released the documents to "support and defend the constitution." Since he has already essentially given up that position with his guilty plea, I think the "support and defend" argument is pretty much a dead end.